Two weeks in, FOX has gone back on this decision, citing their inability to hide the number of fans and followers each contestant had as a factor in the move to discontinue contestants' profiles.

Why is this a crucial question, anyway? Is there anything about being able to see a contestants' number of followers and fans that makes the competition less fair? Does the predictive power of followers affect the outcome of the show? Does this predictive power even exist?

Let's concern ourselves right now with that last question: What is the predictive power of followers? In other words... is the contestant with the most followers most likely to win the competition?

If we were to try to predict the outcome of American Idol using Zócalo Group's Digital Footprint Index [PDF], we'd take into account three different dimensions of the online conversation around each contestant:

• Height - The sheer number of blog posts, forum conversations, status updates and pieces of multimedia connected to the person, from all sources - official and unofficial.
  
  
• Width - The level of engagement and interaction with this stuff. Followers and fans would come in here, as would views, comments and sharing.
  
  
• Depth - The tone and content of these conversations. Do people love or hate the contestant? Do they think someone is "pitchy, dawg," or maybe that they've got a Kevin Covais thing going on? Interestingly, WhatNotToSing.com has built an entire database around the potentially predictive nature of online sentiment alone.
  

From a Zócalo perspective, these indicators only create a comprehensive picture of the online conversation when taken together and compared across contestant. Of course, using that picture to predict the outcome of American Idol would require two major assumptions:

1. That online conversations are an accurate representation of all conversations - and that there is nothing distinct or disproportionate about a contestant's digital footprint as opposed to his or her overall cultural footprint.
   
   
2. That a bigger or "better" footprint (digital or cultural), will necessarily translate into more votes.
   

We have reason to believe that the first assumption is true in many cases. The second one would probably need to be tested. As for the question of whether revealing contestants' follower counts would compromise the integrity of the show... when was the last time American Idol had any integrity to preserve?




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Last Friday, I had the pleasure of leading a brainstorm and learning session here at Zócalo about geotagging and location-based services. I figured as the current "mayor" of the agency on Foursquare, it was at least my mayoral duty!

Location-based services are mobile applications, utilities or games that use positioning technology to provide functions based on a user's geographical location. This can mean a variety of things to different users... from automatically detecting your bank's nearest ATM, to tracking the whereabouts of your friends as they bar-hop through the weekend.

These applications allow people to find services on the go, to broadcast their own location to their friends (or to the world... why not?), and to keep a record of where they've gone and when - like keeping a blog, but with latitude and longitude coordinates.

So what can businesses do with location-based services? Foursquare has some suggestions of their own, but, tools aside, here is how we break down the business benefits conceptually:

1. Become easier to find
Optimize location-based search to make sure people nearby know your business is around. Provide "anywhere" access to customer service by making your stores, branches and representatives dynamically visible on a map.

2. Target the right consumers
Analyze traffic and presence trends in order to plan your store openings and market expansion strategy. Watch where your brand advocates go in order to choose promotional event partners.

3. Engage with consumers
Create real-time promotional offers and loyalty incentives. Issue mobile calls-to-action, and obtain instant feedback/insights.

Want to read more? Check out these 7 ways marketers can use Foursquare, courtesy of MarketingProfs. Any other ideas?




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